Happy hump day! Here’s author extraordinaire and all round nice chap Dan with the latest Stuttgart Kickers season

With a potential Champions League campaign looming, the board expand the stadium for the second summer in a row.

Hello and happy hump day. Dan is here with a new season for Stuttgart Kickers, can they make strides up the table?

We won the opening game, then the second, then the third. After beating double champions Munich 1860 we made it four wins out of four. What is going on?

Happy hump day! Doing the heavy lifting today is Dan with aprt 3 of his mission to take Stuttgart Kickers to the very top. How are they getting on after the winter break?

We face Dortmund the first game back, and they’re unable to exact revenge. In fact, they must hate us, as we win the game with the last kick, catching them cold after the three-month break.

It’s hump day and to help us begin the descent to the weekend it’s Dan, back again with Stuttgart Kickers as they attempt to adapt to life in the top tier.

Game three, and we pick up our first win of the Bundesliga season. Despite having 44% possession, and six shots compared to St. Pauli’s 19, we somehow manage to blag our way to a 1-0 victory up north in Hamburg. Gudjohnsen proves once again that there is life in the old dog yet.

Happy hump day and here for a midweek treat is the newest member of the Blog Squad, @Winkveron. You may remember Dan from being the first ever CM Cup winner back in 2017. Here he is to explain the aim of this game…

In real life, Stuttgarter Kickers sit in second place in the Oberliga Baden-Wurttemberg (one of 14 leagues that make up Germany’s regionalised fifth tier). If they’re lucky enough to secure their current position, and succeed in the playoffs, they’ll gain promotion to the fourth level on the pyramid. But there is a long way to go.

Kickers’ tidy little ground is located about 2km from my father-in-law’s house, so I like to go for a walk around it whenever we visit. A couple of years ago, when they were still in the third tier, he took me to a game there, in the hospitality suite (because his company was a sponsor). I’ve watched their demise since then and can’t believe they’ve dropped so far.

In 1997/98 they were in the second tier, relative nose-bleed territory by today’s standards. They did reach the promised land of the Bundesliga a couple of times in the late ’80s/early 90s but their stays were short lived. They also lost a German cup final around this time. In short, it’s a modest club shorn of an exciting history.

My aims with this save are as follows:

1 – Win promotion to the Bundesliga.

2 – Establish ourselves as a solid Bundesliga outfit.

3 – Win the Bundesliga.

4 – Win the European Cup.

5 – Win the Intercontinental Cup (called “World Club Cup” on the game). (Shameless plug time, I’m in the process of writing a book about the history of this very competition. It will be released in July 2022.)